I didn’t sleep that first night in Ray’s mansion.
How could I, when every part of me still buzzed with the surreal truth that I was here—here of all places—inside the private home of a man I’d spent months fearing, trying to outrun, trying to pretend I imagined? And now he was just down the hall, somewhere behind one of those quiet black doors, close enough that if I stepped outside my room I might hear him breathe or walk or speak my name again like he had in the car.
Ali.
The way he said it had weight. Gravity.
But even with the fear lingering beneath my ribs like a stubborn ache, the bigger thing keeping me awake was something stranger, heavier, far more confusing: the realization that I wasn’t frightened the way I should have been. Not in the way someone should fear a mafia leader
